Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Long-time Dakkites may remember back in (I think) 2002, I ran an 'Army a Week' challenge for myself here on Dakka, to take all of the various Warhammer 40K armies that I had started over the years and never got finished (about 9 in all) and turn them all, 1 each week, into at least a bare minimum game-legal army.

Unfortunately, as my painting time has been rather limited in the years since then, most of those armies have sat there without being updated ever since. Codexes have changed, and 2 new rulebooks have since been released, and so some of them are starting to look a little dated. And some are just waiting for the chance to grow beyond 400-500 point games.

So, starting now (and running for as long as it takes...) I'll be working through the armies one at a time with the intent of updating them all to fit their current codexes, and bring them all up to a minimum of 1500 points.



To kick things off: The Imperial Dragons Space Marines.

The Imperial Dragons were my first 40K army, started back in 1994. They were built predominantly using minis from the 2nd edition starter set and the Space Crusade board game, with scratch-built cardboard vehicles, and were painted in GW's metallic green (pics here).

When GW discontinued their coloured metallics, I changed over to Dark Angels green, but never really got much done in the new colour scheme. With the 'Army a Week' challenge, I splintered off the original metallic guys as a 'Lost Company' and an army of their own, and built a bare bones new army out of what I had sitting around. Looks rather a lot like this:



You can find individual unit pics here.

This army got tweaked a little when 4th ed was released... for a while including units drawn from the Lost Coy, with everyone in Drop Pods (never finished, made from Pringles cans) and an Apothecary in each Tactical squad.

I'm stripping out the excess for the moment, and concentrating on the first 1000 points... which starts out looking like this:




To do:
- Add 5 more Marines to the Tactical squad.
- Repaint the Tac Squad sergeant green (He's taken from the Librarian's Command Squad, which no longer exists. My Vets were all painted black)
- Replace the scout squad's bolters with bolt pistols (can't have bolters and combat blades any more...)
- Fix the Vindicator's Storm Bolter and missing aerial
- Add a searchlight and autolaunchers to the Dreadnought
- Add a Drop Pod for the Dreadnought
- Replace the Techmarine's powerfist with an axe.


First up: The Tactical Squad
5 extra Marines, basecoated and ready for trim.


More (hopefully) soon.

Wow is that a old land speeder

They look very nice, and Salamanders-esque. I especially like how you did the flames. The use of old models is nice too.

I can't find very much to criticize, and the only thing that looked odd was the Techmarine. It's still neat, though.

Looking forward to the rest of your armies.

Death Gear wrote:Wow is that a old land speeder

Most of one. I converted it into a single-seater when the plastic one was released, intending to use it as a 'scout' pattern speeder with some sort of appropriate rules. Never got around to creating rules for it, so it's mostly just sat on the shelf.

Could we have some close ups of the librarian? Looks like a pretty nice converson!

Oh my eyes mist...... 5 man combat squads old scouts rediculously bif Vindicator *sniff*

Xenith wrote:Could we have some close ups of the librarian? Looks like a pretty nice converson!

There are better shots of all of the current models here



He's actually a pretty rubbish conversion. He was made long before I started playing with putty, or doing any sorts of conversions more difficult than repositioning arms... started out as a standard 2nd edition plastic marine with a loincloth made from a piece of paper and a force rod that was just a Marine Sgt's banner pole. In 3rd edition, I sliced off the helmet and replaced it with the gigantic swollen head from the 3rd edition plastic marine sprue, and replaced the force rod with a sword taken from an old Chaos Terminator Lord.

Got in some more painting time on the weekend, and so started adding the detail on my fleshing-out squad of Imperial Dragons.

Made a little more progress on my Imperial Dragons squad, adding the flames to their right shoulder pads:



It's been quite a few years since I did any of these, and in that time GW have changed their washes... so I'm not sure if the roughness of these is down to my rusty technique or the different formula of the red wash. Still, they're passable. On to finishing off their Chapter Badges, and adding in Squad markings.